


Crocodile Rock

by writer_zo



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 1967, F/F, Fluff, M/M, Mutual Pining, i did minimal research, i just saw rocketman again don't touch me, it's pretty short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 17:37:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19255966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writer_zo/pseuds/writer_zo
Summary: It's the end of 1967, and Crowley is in a club looking to make a deal with a promising new pianist--someone who calls himself "Elton John."





	Crocodile Rock

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, Elton John is in this! Yeah, He's friends with a holy being! What are you going to do, tell on me?  
> Also, I wrote this out of spite because someone insulted Crowley's 1960's hair. @im-not-o-shea, eat your damn heart out.

The club was crowded. Saturdays brought in just about everyone: the young, the too-young, the too-old, the students and workers and liars and dreamers. Sin and mercy fogged the air like a miasma, rich in scent and hazy against his sunglasses. A man slipped a hand around his wrist, inviting, and he pulled away to move toward the stage.

Despite the general intoxication (decidedly unholy), the whole atmosphere of the club was joy incarnate. Hastur would probably have gone catatonic upon entering--Crowley, on the other hand, had gotten used to the vague clouds of happiness he passed through, the familiar feeling of love he felt whenever he passed a young couple trading kisses or the two girls who kept linking hands between dancers. 

Hell would have been suspicious about the whole thing if Crowley hadn’t come up with a good excuse, but his excuse was enough to let him drop his jacket and inhibitions off at the door and have a good night. Until the business matters.

Crowley was, officially, here for the pianist--the boy at the front, the one who danced as he played, eyes wild and excited and young. Reggie was a talent, one who was destined to go far in the world if he could get his album greenlit. And he was handsome. A little pale, and he did have scruffy hair, but that was the style, wasn’t it?

It was Crowley’s style, at least. He shoved the hair out of his eyes and made it to the stage, where he met the pianist’s eyes with what he hoped was a composed stare.

The returning smile disarmed him, but it was a good sign that he’d been noticed--all he had to do now was catch the man after the show, get him alone, and explain just how things would work.

Crowley had promised to get Reggie’s soul, in a move that Hell had considered a lot more hands-on than his usual approach and thus a lot more welcome. In reality, he’d be cutting Reggie a deal--he’d get a kickstart to his career (Hell, with how well he was doing, he might not even need it), and all he’d have to do was “swear loyalty” by giving Crowley a free copy of one of his albums every year. All while keeping the pianist out of the grasp of the others, who were likely to ask for something like a soul or… a soul about covered it.

The only issue, in this case, was explaining to Reggie-or-whatever-his-stage-name-was, that Hell and Heaven were decidedly real and that if he didn’t take Crowley’s deal, some other demon was going to walk him into a corner. A daunting task.

One he was going to put off as long as he could. 

“You here for ‘im?” 

Crowley turned to the woman, the one who’d appeared next to him with all of the silence of a miracle. Her voice was clear--bell-like, very young, bouncing against the background applause and crowd and coming back to him. She was young, with copper eyes and dark skin and hair left to grow naturally in a halo around her head. He might have mistaken her for an angel, if not for the lit cigarette that burned like a fallen star against the dim club. 

Crowley turned to her, scanning her for the tell-tale marks of a demon (the frogs, flies, odor, etc.) and then turned away, finding none.

“You could say that.”

“Knew it,” she grinned, looking him up and down. “You got the talent-agent look, alright.”

“Ah… what does that…” His brow furrowed as the song wound to a close, sending the audience whooping and cheering again. Reggie was flushed, giddy with the sound of the audience’s music, glasses askew on the bridge of his nose. His performance was ending. Shit.

“The glasses indoors,” she said, “you think it makes you inconspicuous, but it doesn’t. The black turtleneck. The jeans. The hair. It’s like you’re a rock star hiding from the paparazzi, but you only just became a rock star, so you aren’t good at it.”

“Thank you,” he said, eyes narrowing. “I’m overjoyed to hear it.” He self-consciously readjusted his glasses and watched as Reggie went into the back.

“Yeah,” she said, watching Reggie herself. “Just a heads up? I think some other guy is scouting him out, too. He was totally wearing a suit--like, a full-on geek suit. Didn’t even give a shit. Respect.”

Crowley felt the sweat on the back of his neck cool. “What?”

“Gotta go,” she said, “just go find him. Hey, and if you ever need some musicians, I live in this community with other free-spirited individuals and my little sister, well, she’s a kid wonder on the piano.”

“Yeah. Right. Ciao.”

Rose Moonchild melted back into the crowd with a wave and a smirk, leaving nothing but the scent of tobacco and corner store perfume in his nostrils. He pushed through the crowd, making his way around the edge of the stage, knocking a man aside with hardly a glance. The other player in the picture could be a real talent agent, a close friend, or, if Crowley’s luck kept going the way it always did, a demon waiting to give Reggie the shortest end of the world’s shortest stick and drag Traitor Crowley back to the bowels of Hell.

Crowley hoped it wasn’t that. That would really put a wrench in his plan to take Aziraphale out to lunch some time soon.

The passage around the stage was dim. Distantly, he could hear the sounds of the band having their own celebration, their own whooping and teasing and adulations. He crossed out of the wash of blue light from the stage and into the wings, miracling the single security guard’s eyes off of him.

In one area: chatter, a cluster of vocalists and musicians and the usual madmen from Reggie’s band and other groups drinking from a bottle of something that he could smell from where he was standing. There was Reggie, now--crossing into an ancillary room (a changing room? An office?) lead by someone Crowley couldn’t quite make out.

He kept his head down, crossed the room, and leaned back against the doorframe of the room. Ears perked.

He tried to get a scent--none. Well, not that there wasn’t one, but there was an absolute smorgasbord of scents all around, and Rose’s cigarette had really deadened his smell. He caught a faint whiff of sweat and nervous energy (which does, in fact, give off a scent, and is used by demons for a number of evils) that he assumed belonged to Reggie, and a scent of something familiar that he couldn’t  _ quite _ place with all of the other smells.

“I can’t thank you enough,” Reggie said, voice a little raw from the concert, a little husky despite its overall youth. “Really. Giving me the money to pay off my--”

“Please! It was the least I could do.” Aziraphale said.

Crowley whipped around, searched for a crack in the wood, and pressed his eyes to it, mouth open in shock. 

Aziraphale. And Reggie. Both holding glasses of wine, taken from a bottle Aziraphale brought in, both smiling at each other like they held a great secret. He felt his chest clench for what he told himself was  _ no reason at all _ and kept watching, fascinated.

“I think--I think I’m going to be big.” Reggie said, his eyes widening. “I really do. I don’t know why, but I feel that this is what I’m supposed to do.”

“It is,” Aziraphale reassured him, “my dear, it is.”

Why was he calling Reggie “my dear?” Were the two of them  _ friends _ ? Not that Crowley minded Aziraphale having friends. Not at all. He just thought he ought to know about it. He usually just called Crowley  _ my dear _ like that and yes, maybe it was bothering him to hear him say it to some pianist whose hair wasn’t even as good as Crowley’s.

The young man took a step toward Aziraphale, setting down the wine, and swallowed hard. “I’m really just--I want you to know I like you a lot, Fell.”

“Well, of course I like you too!” Aziraphale said blithely. Crowley felt his mouth go dry. He could see the way that the pianist was looking at his angel, a little hungry and a little scared. Crowley wanted to go in.

Why did he want to go in, really? This should have been perfect. He could tell Hell that the angel thwarted him--cut some deal with the talent to protect him. This was the perfect excuse. 

So why didn’t he just turn around, walk out, and let the crowd swallow him?

_ You go too fast for me, Crowley _ .

The words kept bouncing in his mind, jamming the rest of his thoughts like an ice pick to the temple. What the Heaven did that mean, anyway? Too  _ fast _ ? Too fast would be, well, starting fights and killing and doing real demon things, not following Aziraphale around like a loyal puppy.

“Listen,” said Reggie, putting a hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder, “I--I want you to know that if I get this wrong, I’m still me, and I’m still your friend.”

“Get what wrong?” Az asked, and then Reggie kissed him.

Crowley turned away, shut his eyes, and kicked a heel against the ground. Goddamn it. 

He shouldn’t have cared and he  _ did _ , and it was agonizing.

“Elton,” Aziraphale said, from inside. So that was his stage name. Crowley took a step from the door, then paused, hearing his angel speak again. 

“Elton, I’m sorry. You’re really… well--lovely. But I love someone else.”

“...that makes sense.” Reggie said.

Crowley suddenly felt bad--very bad--in more ways than one. Of course it made sense. It made sense that Reggie (Elton?) just wanted love, it made sense that Aziraphale was in love with someone. Crowley wondered, briefly, what he’d think if Aziraphale was in love with him, then pinched his own arm, grimacing.  _ Snap out of it _ . 

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said, “and I understand. You’ll find someone.” 

“I hope so.”

“You will. You should join your friends--appreciate them, dear. Platonic love is important, too.”

Footsteps. Crowley stumbled back, composing himself, and stood outside the door as though he’d just arrived. A moment later, the pianist came out, looking at Crowley with a half-open mouth, smiling to hide disappointment and nerves. Aziraphale stepped forward--looked to Elton--looked to Crowley, and gasped, shocked.

“Anthony?” He asked.

And Crowley, looking at  his flushed angel with messy blonde hair and eyes that seemed to shimmer when he met them, realized that he was going to try to be just as good as whoever his angel loved.

“Thought I saw you back here,” Crowley said, nonchalant. “But I had to get a few drinks. Reggie, is it?”  
“How did you--er, Elton.” Elton said, shaking his head. Aziraphale continued to gawk from behind him.

“Elton. I’ll give you my card--I’m a patron of the arts, you could say. Contact me,” he said, miracling a professional-looking business card with the number of his flat into existence.

“Thank you?” Elton said, baffled and flattered all the same. Crowley moved past him to look at his angel, forcing a little smirk to his face.

“And what about you, Fell?” He said, “Haven’t seen you in a while. Want to catch up over a few drinks?”

“N--yes.” Aziraphale said, looking down at his feet.  _ Please for the love of anyone let that have been a blush. _ “I don’t see why not?”

“Great,” Crowley said, and he stepped over to link an arm through Aziraphale’s. “I’ll show you a good time.”

He waved goodbye to Elton, only to find that the pianist and Az were having a conversation with their eyes alone--about what, Crowley had no idea. After a moment, he led Aziraphale out and into the crowd, and even though his heart beat staccato and his head felt light, his arm felt just right about his angel’s shoulders.


End file.
